Administrative division is the basic form of national governance system and organizational structure, an effective means for the central government to govern and manage all parts of the country, as well as a major strategic issue concerning the overall national political, economic and social development. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the administrative divisions have been adjusted many times in China. The resource effect produced by the adjustment of administrative divisions has certain regularity and particularity. Generally speaking, administrative divisions are the basic means of national administration and increasing governance capacity. The adjustment and policy making of administrative divisions in different periods are based on the needs of social and economic development and national stability and security at that time. The control policies and key points of administrative divisions in different periods are different. The resource effects of administrative divisions in different periods show certain regularities, such as variability and flexibility in the early years of the founding of new China, reversibility and restraint in the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and policy and regulation in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the adjustment of administrative divisions was characterized by disorder and conservatism. After 2000, the adjustment of administrative divisions has developed towards scale and rationalization. Since 2010, the administrative divisions have become standardized and rationalized. From the perspective of economic development, the administrative divisions in China are not balanced enough to take strategic steps of new urbanization, therefore it is difficult to meet the needs of fine social governance in the new era. This paper makes a multi-angle analysis on the argument that administrative division itself can be seen as a resource, and puts forward a new theoretical interpretation of the theory of administrative division as resources. Then it discusses the resource attributes of administrative division from the perspectives of space, power, administration and policy respectively, and analyzes the resource effect of administrative division from several aspects, such as the spatial allocation of administrative resources, the optimized allocation of production factors, the spatial integration of power resources, the optimized reorganization of spatial resources, and the spatial carrier of policy resources. Finally, it is proposed in the paper that the new theory of administrative division resources should be applied to the construction of strategic spatial planning and spatial governance system of major function oriented zoning, the ideas and requirements of current administrative division should be improved, and the administrative division system and management framework which are compatible with the national development strategy and comprehensive supporting reform should be established and improved.
The definition of city is connected to administrative division system in China. It is important to understand the spatial difference between city administrative area and city physical area. According to the population census data in 2010, we distinguished city definitions in multiple administrative levels, including municipality cities, prefectural cities, cities with districts, cities without districts, cities with sub-districts and cities without sub-districts. In addition, we compared the spatial areas between city administrative cities and physical cities area and put forward some integration strategies. The main results are listed as follows. (1) Among various administrative cities, municipality cities and prefectural cities were larger. The following ones were cities with districts and cities without districts. The areas of cities with sub-districts and cities without sub-districts were relatively small. City physical area reflected the real landscape of a city, which was smaller than all kinds of city administrative areas. It only covered 0.32% of the whole area in the mainland of China but had 30.18% of Chinese population in 2010. (2) To classify city scale hierarchies, the population in city physical area was a better measure than the population in city administrative area. According to the population in the physical area, Shanghai is the largest city in China in 2010. (3) China's city physical area definition was also affected by city administrative definition. We suggested China's city administrative division adjustment should concerns more on county-to-city conversion and new prefectural-city establishment. It is better to regard the population city physical area as a reference index for administrative division adjustment. For the definition of the city physical area, independent municipal district, county seat and large towns were suggested as the independent city physical area. Besides, we recommended to open the statistical data related to city physical area. We do hope our research can be beneficial for policy implications for China's administrative adjustment and city physical area studies.
The continuous promotion of urbanization has created new demands for urban spatial expansion. "Turning counties (cities) into districts" has been one of the main means to enlarge urban area and optimize structure of large cities in China. Taking Hangzhou as an example, this paper quantifies the spatial-temporal characteristics of urban spatial expansion after "Turning counties (cities) into districts", and discusses the mechanism of this administrative division adjustment on urban spatial expansion. The results show that "Turning counties (cities) into districts" has positive effect on urban expansion in Hangzhou. The urban construction land in Hangzhou has been expanding continuously since 2000, especially after "Turning counties (cities) into districts", the trend of eastward expansion of construction land in Hangzhou is more obvious. Specifically speaking, on the one hand, the expansion rate of construction land in Xiaoshan and Yuhang is higher than the average level. On the other hand, construction land in Hangzhou is concentrated in the multi-center of space, the "Core-Periphery" characteristic of construction land in the whole city is weakened. The new construction land is mainly concentrated in the eastern part of the city. Xiaoshan and Yuhang become the new high-density areas for construction land expansion after "Turning counties (cities) into districts", and urban functions continue to be highlighted in these two municipal districts. "Turning counties (cities) into districts" should be regarded as an important driving force for urban expansion, but not the only one. According to the theory of scale and boundary, "Turning counties (cities) into districts" has indirect effects on urban expansion, which requires the following routes: urban planning and revision, adjustment of land properties and privilege, spatial reorganization of production factors. The joint action of all factors affects the urban spatial expansion and spatial evolution, and then affects the evolution of regional structure. It is a comprehensive research topic to study the influence and mechanism of "Turning counties (cities) into districts" on urban space expansion. This paper focuses on the spatial and temporal changes of construction land in new districts before and after "Turning counties (cities) into districts", and explores the interrelationship between "Turning counties (cities) into districts" and other driving forces. This is a necessary prerequisite for the adjustment of administrative divisions, and can provide reference for the future adjustment of urban administrative divisions.
Urban spatial pattern has long been recognized as a central issue of regional economic research. Recent studies have become increasingly interested in the concepts of 'polycentricity' and 'network'. However, despite multiple types of intercity linkages being explored in an analysis of polycentricity, scholars have failed to reach a consensus on the argument whether urban regions feature a morphological or functional polycentricity pattern due to the differences of development stage, spatial scale and research perspective. Exploring the urban spatial pattern under the action of knowledge flow can contribute to a better understanding of innovative space formation and collaborative innovation in a globalizing knowledge economy, which should be a key proposition of economic geography. From a technological knowledge perspective, this paper takes Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Pearl River Delta (PRD), the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (MYR) and Chengdu-Chongqing (CC) urban agglomerations as the objects. Drawing on social network analysis and Gini coefficient, this paper analyzes morphological and functional polycentricity at regional and national geographical scales based on a unique patents and co-patents dataset issued by the National Intellectual Property Administration of P. R. China (CNIPA) in 2014. The main findings of this study are drawn as follows. (1) China's urban agglomerations reach high levels of Gini coefficients of total patents and external connectivity, implying that the structure of technological knowledge production and collaboration can hardly be considered morphologically and functionally polycentric at present, although the network characteristic of technological knowledge collaboration within and beyond the urban agglomerations is found to be clear. The finding differs somewhat from much of the earlier literature which has relied upon data on intercity transportation linkages, intercity firm linkages and intercity scientific knowledge linkages. (2) The technological knowledge network structure of China's urban agglomerations reveals a significant spatial heterogeneity. Geographical proximity is no longer crucial for the formation of technological knowledge collaboration network. It is obvious that the intensity of technological knowledge flows at the national scale tend to be more imbalanced. Analytically, strong ties occur more easily between a few core cities with the strong network position and innovation capability. (3) Comparing morphological and functional polycentricity among China's urban agglomerations, one can obviously see the significant regional differences. In general, the results demonstrate that regional innovation foundation, economic development strength and synergetic development level may affect the degree of polycentricity. (4) The functional polycentricity of China's urban agglomerations has scale sensitivity, with a higher degree of functional polycentricity at the regional scale than that of functional polycentricity at the national scale. These findings of this study will be conducive to stimulating the re-thinking of urban spatial organization theory.
Mixed and multifunctional land uses have been identified as an enabling way to promote urban vibrancy and yield socio-economic benefits. As a key strategy in New Urbanism and Smart Growth, mixed use has been widely accepted in urban planning for promoting urban vibrancy and sustainability. This study aims to reveal the differences in the spatial distribution characteristics of different types of mixed use and the influencing factors of their distribution in Changchun central district from the perspective of urban diversity. Based on the POI data in the central district of Changchun, this study focuses on four function categories: Residence, office, commerce, and leisure. Location quotient, entropy index, and Geodetector are used to explore the distribution features and influencing factors of mixed use in Changchun. Serveral conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) Mixed use is the major form of street scale function elements distribution, from the perspective of concentration. All types of elements form a functional gathering area of specialization, but there are large differences between the degrees of specialization. The distribution of concentration of functional elements shows consistent trends with the overall quantity distribution. (2) The degrees of mixed use performance of core-periphery spatial differences reflects that the degree of the core street area a is higher than that of the external zone. The degrees of mixed use of office, commerce, and leisure is stronger than their mixture degree with residence. (3) The main features of mixed use at street scale are the mixed multi-functions compatible with each other. Among the various types of functional elements, leisure and commercial elements have a higher degree of interaction with others, which means that they have a strong compatibility, with the positive effect on mixed use. (4) The spatial heterogeneity of the degrees of mixed use is significant. The primary determinants of the spatial distribution of mixed use include: land price, number of leisure elements and commercial elements. The total number of functional elements, the density of population and the density of road network variables show a weak influence on the differentiation of multifunctional land use. Except that the land price varies, other influencing factors behave differently in the by-type mixed use impact mechanism.
The innovation, development and technological progress of the ten key industries (iron and steel, automobiles, ships, petrochemicals, textiles, light industry, nonferrous metals, equipment manufacturing, electronic information and logistics) in China are highly concerned by the state and expected by the public. So the research on it is of great significance. Firstly, the Mann-Kendall method is used to divide the development stages of the ten key industries of China from 1994 to 2014, and to understand the evolution of the key industries. Secondly, this paper analyzes the innovation output difference, spatial pattern and spatial-temporal transfer characteristics of key industries in the prefecture-level cities by using the Theil index, Markov and spatial Markov chains method respectively. Finally, based on factor analysis and multiple regression model, this paper discusses the factors that influence the spatial differentiation of the innovation development of the ten key industries in China. The conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The development of the innovation outputs of the ten key industries can be divided into two stages (the first stage is from 1995 to 2006, the second stage is from 2007 to 2014), and the result of innovation outputs of the ten key industries is in exponential growth. (2) The difference of the innovation outputs of the ten key industries increased at first and then decreased, and the inter-regional difference among the four regions (Eastern, Central, Western and Northeastern China) is less than the intra-regional difference. The development of innovation outputs of the ten key industries presents the dual characteristics of contagious and hierarchical diffusion. (3) The neighborhood environment plays an important role in the development of the ten key industries. Under different environmental constraints, the transition probability of different types of unit is different, and the higher the neighborhood environment level is, the stronger the driving force to low level units is. In the two periods, the transferred units of the innovation outputs of the ten key industries are mainly concentrated in the eastern and central regions of China. The activity of the transfer is increasing, and the transferred units are concentrated in spatial distribution. (4) The social economic and policy factors and the basic condition of higher education have obvious positive driving effect on the innovation and development of the ten key industries, while the effect of industrialization is weak. In the next period of time, the innovation and development competitiveness of the ten key industries can be improved by strengthening the investment in the foundation of higher education and intellectual capital.
As we all know, agglomeration economy is one of the key factor affecting the location choice of enterprises. It can be divided into localization and urbanization. Enterprises benefit from localization and urbanization are different. Localization originates from industry size but urbanization originates from city size. Many researches have explored the mechanism of the two and their impact on different industries, and a series of meaningful conclusions have been drawn. However, spatial effect is important to enterprises' decision making, while scholars pay little attention to it, such as whether the impact of agglomeration economy has spillover effect in space, how large the scale of the effect is, whether the relationship is spatially different. Therefore, this paper improves the traditional location selection model to a spatial model, and studies the spatial effect of location selection of manufacturing enterprises. Based on the spatial poisson models, this paper discusses the spatial dependence of location selection and agglomeration economies and manufacturing industry enterprises location selection in China. It is found that both localization and urbanization have significant spatial effects, but the spatial effect is weaker than the direct effect. The results show that: (1) There are significant spatial effects in both localization and urbanization, but the spatial effects are weaker than the direct effects. (2) The spatial effects of localization and urbanization are different. The former has spillover effect, while the latter has shadow effect. (3) There are also differences in the scale of positive impact between localization and urbanization. The former has a larger scale of positive impact, while the latter is limited to local areas. (4) There are industry differences in the direct and spatial effects of agglomeration economy, and their intensity is positively correlated.
With the rapid socio-economic development and the progress of urbanization, the demand for basic education public service is increasing both in rural and urban areas. As a result, the issue of regional and urban-rural non-equalization has become increasingly prominent, which significantly affects the development of the harmonious society. Under this background, the paper discussed the equalization of basic education public service. Based on the POI data of basic education facilities, the spatial pattern and the influencing factors of the equalization of basic education public service in China were studied with the method of ArcGIS spatial statistical analysis functions, such as cartogram, kernel density, geographical weighted regression(GWR) and the exploratory sequential data analysis (ESDA). The results show that the basic education public service of eastern and central China accounts for about 65%, and the high-value regions of the basic education public service are observed in urban agglomerations of China, while the low-value regions are mainly located to the west of the "Hu Line". The low-value regions of the preschool education public service per capita are found in the central and western regions of China. Compared with the elementary and secondary education public service, the non-equalization situation of the preschool public service is more obvious. The high-high concentrated regions, the elementary and secondary education public service per capita highly owned regions, and the low-low concentrated regions are distributed all over the country. In general, the equalization of regional basic education public service per capita is superior to the absolute numbers. The spatial heterogeneity is recognized by geographical weighted regression model. The resident population, tertiary industry proportion, and urban built-up area are the major factors influencing the spatial pattern of the equalization of basic education public service. Education fiscal expenditure, GDP per capita and the fixed asset investment are the secondary driving forces of the spatial pattern of the equalization of basic education public service.
Since the reform and opening up, China's urbanization process has significantly accelerated its pace, with the national resident population urbanization rate increasing from 17.92% in 1978 to 56.1% in 2015. However, in late 2015, the national registered population urbanization rate is only 39.9%, which means that more than 200 million migrant workers are in the semi-urbanization state. For a long time, the separate administration of urban and rural areas has driven the migrant workers away from the urban system, making it difficult for them to enjoy the urban social security and social services like the urban citizens, which has brought about the institutional or non-institutional exclusion when they move into the urban areas. As a result, in the current process of urbanization in China, how to promote the social integration of migrant workers in the urban areas has become an important research topic. This paper selects Shenzhen, a metropolis with many migrant workers, as the research case. It focuses on the social integration of the three evolution types of rural migrant enclaves from the perspective of spatial differences. Based on the 1990, 2000 and 2010 census data in Shenzhen, this paper divides the evolution process of rural migrant enclaves into three types by using the location quotient, including the growing type, the stable type and the decaying type, and analyzes the differences of migrant worker social integration in Luofang village, Qinghu village and Gongle village respectively. It also carries out a questionnaire survey in the three types of rural migrant enclaves in Shenzhen in 2016, and explores the status and the influencing factors of migrant worker social integration in Shenzhen. The research findings are as follows: (1) Social integration of migrant workers in Shenzhen includes community integration, economic integration, social integration, cultural integration and psychological integration. (2) Luofang village has the highest level of social integration, followed by Gongle village and Qinghu village. Luofang village ranks first in terms of community integration, social integration and psychological integration. Gongle village has the highest economic integration. And Qinghu village enjoys the highest cultural integration. (3) Social integration of migrant workers is jointly influenced by community support, vocational skills, family size, length of residence in Shenzhen, and the age. Social integration in Luofang village is mainly influenced by community support, community function, the age and marital status, while social integration in Gongle village is mainly influenced by vocational skills, marital status and the age, and Qinghu village mainly by community support and length of residence in Shenzhen. (4) The most crucial factor contributing to the improvement of economic integration of migrant workers is not the rise of education level, but the improvement of vocational skills and the obtainment of vocational qualification certificates. Additionally, gender and community involvement have positive impact on community integration and negative impact on social integration, meaning that the more community activities one female participates in, the lower social integration and the higher community integration she will have.
The popularity of online shopping has changed the shopping behavior of residents. Foreign scholars have done much research on the relationship between online shopping and shopping trips, but almost all of existing related studies abroad take shopping behavior as a whole, while they have rarely analyzed the impact of online shopping from the perspective of shopping process. Also, the existing research on influencing factors has not explored the impact of specific indicators of the built environment on people's shopping behavior. This paper takes Nanjing as an example, and deconstructs the shopping process into three steps: stirring purchasing desire, searching information and experiencing goods, purchasing. And the authors suppose that residents use only one way (store or online) in each step, and then identify eight kinds of shopping mode. On the basis of dividing the types of goods into two types: search goods and experience goods, two multinomial logit models are applied to explore the impact of economic and social attributes, shopping attitudes, use of the network and built environment on people's choice of shopping modes. This paper finds out that: (1) All types of variables mentioned above affect the residents' shopping behavior of buying two kinds of goods. (2) The built environment variables have significant impact on the residents' purchase of search goods and experience goods. Firstly, urban residents are more likely to select the substitution mode when they buy the two kinds of goods; but suburban residents are more likely to select the complementarity mode when they buy experience goods. Secondly, residents with lower traffic convenience tend to substitution mode when they buy search goods; but they tend to complementarity mode when they buy experience goods. Thirdly, shopping convenience also has a great influence on residents' shopping behavior. (3) Commuting distance has a great impact on the purchase of search goods, but does not affect the purchase of experience goods. (4) Innovative diffusion assumptions and efficiency assumptions exist simultaneously. In time order, innovative diffusion assumptions appear before efficiency assumptions; in space order, innovative diffusion assumptions play a major role at the macro scale of the city, while efficiency assumptions play a major role at the micro scale.
With rapid economic growth, the problem of resources depletion and environmental pollution has become increasingly prominent in China. According to the CO2 emission reduction target, by 2020 the amount of CO2 emission per output unit (GDP) will drop by 40%-45% compared to 2005, and China is facing a severe challenge in national sustainable development. It is against such background that this paper will make a comprehensive examination of regional input and output efficiency, aiming to discover a green and compatible way. From the perspective of the integrated view of factor input and economic-environmental output, this paper establishes provincial input and output efficiency indicator system, and then measures the changing trend and spatial differences of provincial input and output efficiency in China comprehensively, using CCR model and super-CCR mode. The major findings were summarized as follows. First, the input and output efficiency in China is rising, although there are fluctuations; especially after 2010, the efficiency in China has increased significantly, due to the government's efforts of development of green economy. In 2015, the input and output efficiency in China is 1.667, compared to 1.354 in 1995. Second, in 2015, provincial efficiency decreases gradually from eastern to central and western region, from north to south; while the provincial differences have been more significiant, compared to 1995. Third, the input and output efficiency of eastern region is higher than that of other regions, due to obvious location advantages, large economic volume and relatively high resource allocation efficiency. And the efficiency of Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong has been increasing in the last two decades. The input and output efficiency in the western and northeastern regions are much lower, while Heilongjiang's efficiency has been decreasing since 1995. The input and output efficiency in central region with heavy industrial structure is at the middle level. Among the provinces, Shanxi, Anhui and Hubei have decreased the efficiency, while Henan has increased significantly after financial crisis. There exist clear differences of input and output efficiency in the western region, where the efficiency of most provinces is lower due to the weakness of natural background, too large proportion of energy and raw materials industry. But the efficiency of Qinghai is always the forfront, while that of southwest provinces has an obvious decreasing trend.
Ecosystem service (ES) has become deeply embedded in governmental decision-making. The ecosystem service flow between different regions caused by the spatial mismatch of supply and consumption has become a hotspot. This paper calculated ecosystem service footprint flow of food provision, freshwater provision, and regulation using the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model, within the context of 15 sectors of China's domestic trade at provincial level. Conclusions are as follows: Firstly, there are obvious regional differences in ecosystem services footprint. The results show that, the per capita food provision is 1.16 hm2, and the southern provinces have higher food provision service footprint than the northern, separated by Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River. It can be seen that the per capita fresh water provision service footprint is 0.06 hm2, higher in the north and south, but lower in the central region, which is divided by the 800 mm annual rainfall isoline. And the per capita regulation service is 2.92 hm2 and presents a pattern of higher in the northern and eastern parts, while lower in the central and western in China. Secondly, spatial mismatch of ecosystem service supply and consumption is the fundamental cause for ecosystem service footprint flow. Social development and population growth are the main driving force of the ecosystem services footprint flow. The ecosystem service footprint supplied from the sparsely populated west and southwest China transport through the domestic trade to eastern China that could get benefit from the flow and get release of the ecological pressure. Finally, according to the STIRPAT model, we verify the above three types of service footprints, which shows that the Kuznets curve does not exist, or the turning point has not improved yet. Therefore, how to coordinate the relationship between economic development and ecological conservation is the precondition of sustainable development.
The earth's surface is the survival home for human beings, and especially the surface patterns can directly or indirectly affect human life, production, and social and economic activities. Both geomorphology and ecology are closely related to human beings. Natural and human entities are both attached to the earth's surface. Therefore, the subject is collectively called ecological geomorphology. No subject is more closely related to human beings than ecological geomorphology. It directly influences human survival location, survival guarantee, production direction, industrial layout, transportation, urban and rural construction, and so on. Therefore, the study of ecological geomorphology is a basic and applied subject, which is to ensure the sustainable and coordinated development of human survival and social economy, and to realize the strategy of ecological civilization. Ecological geomorphology is a subject that studies the relationship between ecology and geomorphology. The subject system includes geomorphological basic disciplines, ecological basic disciplines and ecological geomorphological disciplines formed by their interaction. The subject also contains ecological geomorphological regionalization, ecological geomorphological typology, ecological geomorphological resources, ecological geomorphological petrology, remote sensing and GIS technology for ecological geomorphology, and ecological geomorphological management and planning, which is still being explored. The ecological and geomorphological structure can be expressed as follows: geomorphologic and biological composition, types, regional combination, quantitative composition and its spatial arrangement and combination. Based on the theory of ecological and geomorphological structure, this paper systematically summarizes its function. To sum up, the eco-geomorphological structure includes regional structure, type structure, resource structure and rock state structure. Different sructural types have different functions, including improvement of the quality of China's physiographical regionalization and spatial positioning, ecological assessment and ecological design, land use assessment and utilization structure adjustment, geological and geomorphological disaster causes and disaster prevention and reduction countermeasures. In order to achieve the coordination between function and sustainable benefits, the authors have made a whole set of function, formed a functional system, and put forward a design path to improve functional capability from the perspective of regulation and management.
Changes in the ecosystem service values under the disruption of human activities in national or regional differences and their comparative studies can provide an effective guideline for integrated coastal management and related spatial planning. The data used in this study consist of satellite images Landsat TM/OLI medium-resolution images with GIS analysis tools, we study the spatial and temporal changes of ecosystem service values of the Xiangshangang Bay, Zhejiang of China and Tampa Bay, Florida of USA under the influence of human activities. Results show that: (1) In the past 30 years, the Xiangshangang Bay basin mainly consisted of farmland and forests, while the Tampa Bay basin was dominated by cities and forests. The area of unnatural ecosystems of the two estuaries was larger than that of natural ecosystems, which was the main factor affecting the ecological difference of the study area. (2) As the intensity of human activities was increasing and the scope of development and utilization expanded, in the study period, the amount of ecosystem services in Xiangshangang Bay decreased by 397.64×106 yuan, while that of Tampa Bay decreased by 1186.73×106 yuan. (3) The spatial distribution of ecosystem service values of the two estuarine watersheds is negatively correlated with the level of regional economic development. Traffic distribution, agricultural production and urban development stages have a significant impact on the distribution of ecosystem service values. (4) The management experience of the "Tampa Bay Estuary Conservation Plan" since the 1990s can be used for reference for the development and utilization of the Xiangshangang Bay. Multi-disciplinary planning, to be enlightened at the same level of domestic harbor management, should strengthen cooperation and exchange with neighbouring areas.
Land use change causes the transformations of land use functions. In recent years, with the deep understanding of land use and its regional environmental effects, changes in land functions have attracted more attention. On the one hand, due to land resource scarcity, understanding multifunction land use, especially its spatial differentiation, plays a significant role in making full use of land. On the other hand, better understanding multifunctional land use can provide scientific evidence for formulating land use policies and fulfilling sustainable land management. Therefore, multifunctional land use is an effective way to increase land use efficiency and mitigate land use contradictions. Historically and nowadays, the scarcity and unbalanced spatial distribution of land resources has been limiting the socio-economic development of the arid northwestern China, thus there is a pressing need to explore changes in multifunctional land use of this region. Here, we analyzed natural and socio-economic datasets from multiple sources, and assessed the spatial and temporal dynamics of multifunctional land use in the middle reach of Heihe River basin from 2000 to 2014, a typical arid area with much intense human-environmental interaction. We built a suite of indices for the assessment of multifunctional land use from the dimensions of land use functions, ecosystem services, and landscape functions. Then we employed the Set Pair Analysis (SPA) to assess the dynamics of multifunctional land use, and the spatial statistics methods (e.g., hotspot analysis, spatial autocorrelation) to reveal spatial patterns. The results show that from 2000 to 2014, land use function has doubled. Social, economic, environmental and cultural functions have increased differently. Overall, social and economic functions have increased more rapidly than environmental and cultural functions. These four functions develop in an unbalanced way. Social function is positively correlated to economic function, because they both reflect human society and economic development. Environmental function is positively correlated to cultural function, which indicates environment has cooperative relation with resources and landscape. The correlation between social and environmental functions is negative and weak, because land use is difficult to satisfy human's needs while keeping environmental function well. Second-class functions show the same correlation patterns as the first-class functions. There are three typical areas for multifunctional land use in the study area: the alluvial plain areas, the urban areas, the southern piedmont areas of Qilian Mountains and Longshou Mountains. Alluvial plain areas have abundant water resources, and are mainly composite of wetlands and croplands. The functions of these areas are food supplies and ecological balance regulation. Urban areas mainly provide social, economic and cultural functions. Southern piedmont areas mainly consist of forests and grasslands, and are at high altitudes with suitable hydrothermal condition. Thus, they can better provide functions of resource supplies and ecological regulation. Our research has great implications for sustainable land use in the arid zone.
Under the dual pressures of resource constraint and ecological environment destruction, it has become an important task for China to optimize territorial space development pattern, which aims at simultaneously satisfying the demands of economic development and social stability to fulfill the sustainable development. Since land use is the core carrier of territorial space development, it is helpful to study the effects and its characteristics emerged in the process of land use to identify the problems and cruxes of territorial space development. This study took Jiangsu province as an example, and established the classification system of land use functions (LUFs) based on the targets of regional territorial space development. The system contains three first-level functions, i.e., agricultural production function (APF), urban living function (ULF) and ecological maintenance function (EMF), and nine second-level functions. Then, an assessment was conducted on LUF in the years of 2000 and 2015 as well as its change from 2000 to 2015 in Jiangsu province by the unit of 1 km×1 km, respectively. The methods used contained statistical data spatialization method, InVEST, and RUSLE. Based on this, we summarized the change characteristics and patterns of LUFs, and analyzed the causes for different LUF change patterns. Finally, we divided Jiangsu province into different partitions in terms of the change of LUFs. The results showed that: (1) APF increased in western Jiangsu and decreased in eastern Jiangsu from 2000 to 2015. ULF increased more significantly in southern Jiangsu than in central and northern Jiangsu, and each function of EMF has different change characteristics in different regions. (2) The change of APF and EMF showed collaborative relevance, and the change of APF and ULF showed trade-off relevance in Jiangsu province. (3) In general, we divided Jiangsu province into eight subareas for the change of LUFs, including Southwest Hilly Areas-Comprehensive function increased zone, Taihu Lake Plain-Production function decreased zone, and Living function increased zone along the Yangtze River Plain. Different areas had different dominant change patterns of LUFs.
It can be reveal the changing process and mechanism of the human-land relationship, through the analysis of the coupling relationship between the transition of land use and the small-scale peasant economy change in mountainous areas. With the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization, the relationship between human and land in rural areas has undergone profound changes. Small-scale peasant economy change has driven the transition of land use, and land use transition has further promoted small-scale peasant economy change. This paper discusses the coupling mechanism between rural land use transition and small-scale peasant economy change in mountainous areas in our country, which based on the analysis of the connotation and characteristics of the two; it can provide theoretical support and practical reference for the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. The results indicate that: (1) The rural land use transition and small-scale peasant economy change affect each other, coupled evolution in mountainous areas. (2) The rural land use transition in mountainous areas is mainly reflected in the three types of land in rural housing land, cultivated land and forest land. (3) China's small-scale peasant economy has undergone four changes, while it has been more obvious in the fourth in mountain areas, its stage features mainly mountainous rural to urban migration, land transfer frequently, and land scale management trends increased. (4) The small-scale peasant economy in mountainous areas leads to the spatial form and function transition of cultivated land, cultivated land transition in mountain areas further promoting the economic transition of small peasants. (5) The small-scale peasant economy change in mountainous areas and the non-agricultural transition of peasant household's livelihood strategy prompted peasants to change their demand for the functions and structures of homesteads. At the same time, which can apparent value of rural land assets, increase land property income and promote the small-scale peasant economy change. (6) The case of conversion of cultivated land use in Yanshan county of Yunnan province can support the coupling mechanism of rural land use transition and small-scale peasant economy change proposed in this paper.
A total of 300 samples in topsoils (0-20 cm) of Guangrao county, Shandong province were collected, and each sample was analyzed for As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn. The sources and spatial distribution of heavy metals were examined using multivariate analysis and geostatistics, and the ecological risk of heavy metals in soils was evaluated using H?kanson's method. The average contents of Co and Pb were lower than the background values of Shandong, and the average concentrations of the other heavy metals were higher than the background values of the province. In particular, the mean contents of Cd and Hg were 1.86 and 2.50 times their respective background values, indicating that there were obvious accumulations of Cd and Hg in surface soils. As, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn mainly came from natural sources, and were controlled by parent materials. Hg originated from coal combustion and industrial emissions, and was greatly controlled by human activities. Cd and Pb were affected by both natural and human factors. Agricultural practices, especially the application of chemical fertilizers, contributed to the increased Cd contents, while the vehicles emissions were the main human inputs to the Pb contents. The spatial distributions of As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn were controlled by parent materials with the higher contents in the soils from lacustrine deposit and the Yellow River alluvium; there were significant differences among various land use types, and higher contents were observed around the urban area. Totally, the study area suffered the moderate ecological risk with the high value area corresponding to the urban area; the intense human activities have led to high ecological risk in the urban area. The level of ecological risk was the lowest in the northeast part, the high ecological risk was concentrated in the urban area and the surrounding area, and the other regions had middle ecological risk. Hg was at the considerable ecological risk level, and Cd was at the moderate ecological risk level, while other heavy metal elements were at the low ecological risk level.
Sea level rise will magnify the adverse impact of storm surges on the coast, and extreme high water level will increase the risk of coastal damage. To mitigate the impacts of extreme events, building levees is chosen to be a corresponding engineering adaptation strategy to protect the infrastructure. This paper investigated the economic impacts of storm surge and sea level rise based on the historical disaster dataset in the Pearl River Delta. First, the protection level of the levees in the PRD was identified, and the relationship between economic damage and surge was discussed by analyzing the historical disaster data. Then the loss due to storm surge was calculated from the relationship between the rate of damage (direct economic loss/GDP) and surges. And the cost of heightening levees was deduced. Then a theoretical model that quantitatively evaluates the effects of building levees was established by conducting benefit-cost analysis, according to which, the benefit of heightening levees is the difference between the loss due to storm surge with no adaptation and the cost of heightening levees for protection. Finally, the model was applied to calculate the effects of heightening levees under different future scenarios. The results showed that the rate of storm surge damage was positively correlated with storm surge in the Pearl River Delta. The coastal areas will benefit from implementing levee projects with the height in the range of 1.69-11.85 m. The benefit was approaching a maximum at a height of 5.22 m, and it decreased and became negative while the height is higher than 11.85 m. Under the scenarios of 2030, 2050 and 2100, the largest benefits occurred when the levee was designed to combat a 20-year return period of storm event with sea level rise in 2100, and the smallest occurred in a 100-year return period of storm event with sea level rise in 2100. The research will provide important scientific basis for coastal areas to cope with and adapt to sea level rise and storm surge events.
Yangshao culture is the representative of the Holocene Neolithic culture in the north of China. The Neolithic culture in Yellow River Basin expanded quickly in the Yangshao period, from the previous Weihe River valley in the west to eastern Qinghai, east to the lower reaches of Yellow River, north to Chifeng of Inner Mongolia, and south to most parts of Hanshui River valley. The warm and wet Holocene megathermal climate conditions were closely related to the quick expansion of the Yangshao culture. In the Yangshao period, as the powerful monsoon increased rainfall, the 400 mm isohyet moved towards northwest about 200 km. This means that the northern monsoon boundary system has expanded to the northwest inland, resulting in the expansion of the cultivation of the millet, and the Yangshao culture, which is characterized by millet cultivation, has also expanded accordingly. The 400 mm isohyet became the west boundary of Yangshao culture expansion, as well as the boundary of Yangshao millet planting area and north microliths hunting-gathering area in the Holocene megathermal. The summer monsoon in northern China in the mid-Holocene period increased. The expansion of the monsoon to the interior led to the expansion of Yangshao culture in northern China. The expanded Yangshao culture also laid the early form of the relatively unified Chinese civilization, and eventually became one of the important sources of Chinese civilization.
New cultural geography advocates that geography exists in the text. This paper regards 13 transcripts of Genglubu found in Tanmen Town as the research text, and uses the content analysis method as well as the textual analysis method to do the research. This paper presents a case study which analyzes the relationship between "Genglubu" and the construction and reproduction of Tanmen's placeness through three dimensions. Here are some findings as follows. First, fishermen in Tanmen have geocoded the South China Sea's seascape in their own distinctive way according to the records in "Genglubu" which constitutes the unique local knowledge system of the text. Then, "Genglubu" was created by local fishermen in Tanmen on the need of navigation in ancient times. Nowadays, this document material has been regarded as the representation of the local knowledge about the South China Sea accumulated by the fishermen in historical period. What's more, different groups of people identify and interpret "Genglubu" in diverse ways. The meaning of "Genglubu" not only plays a role in the fishermen's identity construction, but also makes itself a cultural symbol and takes part in the reproduction of Tanmen's local landscape. There are some conclusions about the new relationship or the interaction between text and placeness enlightened by this case study as follows: Firstly, the text content itself is the primary dimension while analyzing how the text takes part in the construction of placeness. Only the distinctive content recorded in the text can make it unique as one of the local characteristics, and a tool to identify local place's personality. Secondly, the meaning system of text is the essential element to construct and reproduce the placeness of a place. Whether the text has historical or cultural meaning is based on, rather than determined by its content. The value of the text is not just the literal denotation, but a special connotation in a certain social context. Thirdly, the interpretation of the text's symbolic meaning by different groups of people is an important way for people to make use of the text in constructing and reproducing the placeness. It is worth noting that the value system of the text not only contains the voice of the inventor or creative group, but also involves how other people or cultural groups identify, recognize, and interpret the text meaning. Finally, the text interacts with the placeness' construction and reproduction. The text with local distinct historical records can construct and represent the placeness, and the development of placeness impacts the meaning of local text conversely. As a cultural symbol or a local historical attraction, the text makes a difference in contributing to the local economic development. In return, the text can gain more attention from local groups and be better protected due to its economic value.
